Die ehemalige konservative Oppositionsführerin Park Geun-hye (2004-2006) gilt als aussichtsreiche Kandidatin für die kommenden Präsidentschaftswahlen im Dezember 2007. Die Tochter des so genannten Entwicklungsdiktators Park Chung-hee, der während seines Regimes (1961-1979) den...

Recent developments in South Korea's foreign and security policies as well as major structural adjustments in the military alliance between the United States and South Korea indicate a new self-understanding on the part of South Korea in terms of playing a more assertive role in regional and...

A debate persists over how economic performance fuels democratization. It is fanned partly by the divergent experiences of South Korea and Taiwan that suggest that economic growth leads to democratization. This paper provides a theoretical model that shows that economic downturns lead to...

Taiwan and South Korea seem to have followed parallel paths from industrialization under authoritarian to vibrant democracy in a few short decades. Yet in these two East Asian societies industrialization took different forms. In Taiwan, development approached a fragmented pattern in which...

A key point of contestation in debates over elections and regime type is whether authoritarian elections are meaningless shams or engines of democratization. Comparison of the experiences of South Korea and Taiwan can offer insight into this issue. Authoritarian regimes in both places held...

The article deals with the social mechanism that connects modernization with democratization. Starting from a differentiation theoretical point of view, the paper argues that the major impetus for democratization is rather given by "functional antagonisms" inside the social subsystems than by...